This is Part 2 of the process of introduing a US based LLC as a parent company of a Moldovan SRL. Find Part 1 here.

Note: this post is mostly a wordy, if humorous, take on banking and wire transfers in Moldova. If you would like to jump to the recommendations section for Parts 1 & 2 of this post do so here.

**Update Nov 15: we just finalized all of the papers so this process is over. Once we got through the lower level people to the department director things got much easier. This is in spite of the fact that they royally messed up our paperwork. The director fixed it all himself and was not only professional but extremely pleasant to work with. It's always a wonder when you find someone in the government who really wants to help and make your day easier. Today, at the end of this mess, I have a lot of respect for the State Registration Chamber. Also we discovered that we can in fact have multiple "Administrators" of the company. Post coming soon...

Note 1: This post is an update to our first post about organizing a company in Moldova. While that post was pretty general and explained our initial reasoning this one will attempt to explain the results of that reasoning over the last few months and a few preliminary recommendations for other entrepreneurs (ok, this got long. Conclusions Recommendations will be in Part 2 [COMING SOON]). We will be writing a further update on this topic later on with more solid recommendations. (small update below)

Note 2: This post is covering quite a lot of experience had over a long period of time. The topic is dense and often technical. Please comment if things are unclear and I will add more information. Also, as usual, please feel free to tell us how stupid we are. Everyone can learn from that.

Jump to... (note to use these section links open up the full version of the post by clicking the title or on "Continue Reading" below)

I'll begin where the last post ended which was with a discussion of the process that we decided to embark upon. That was to organize the companies basically as follows:

I'll let you all guess which silhouette represents which manager...

So to describe what you're seeing there we founded a Moldovan SRL called "Smoke House SLR" (they refused to believe it was one word and we didn't fight it). Additionally we founded an American LLC called "The Moldova Company LLC" in Virginia. The purpose of the LLC, as described briefly in the previous post, is to escape from some of the more challenging bureaucratic differences between a Moldovan SRL and an American LLC. These all...

Update 29/9/14: it seems that Americans (and possibly other countries but I have no idea which) are allowed to apply for 5 year visas instead of just 1. This was conveyed to us by one of the branches of government tasked with approving our visas. We are trying to alter the documents post-submission but are unsure if it will succeed. Stay tuned.

So if you're not a Moldovan and you're going to try and start a business in Moldova you will need a visa. This is an interesting process and by "interesting" I mean basically horrible. Firstly, here are the top-level requirements:

If you are from a country that has visa-free entry to the Republic of Moldova (like America and Most of Europe - a list is provided here but I have no idea if it's up to date)

You must apply for your visa while you still have 30 days left on your visa-free stay

They will evaluate your visa for 30 days. After that you go back to the office and they tell you yes / no

If you require a visa to enter the Republic of Moldova - good luck. I encountered a lot of the paperwork for this process and while it seemed straightforward it's a fair bet that it's anything but. Anyhow, I have no experience with it (if you do please comment below)

If you're the type of person who scans to the end I'll save you the trouble. The answer to the title question is "No One Knows"...or perhaps "I won't ever tell!" (which is also the name of a rather unfortunate song from Fat Joe).

Ok, what are we actually talking about here? Let's start at the beginning. Ever business needs services. Some of these are easier to farm out than to do internally - often legal and accounting fall into this category. This post is about our experience trying to hire an accountant. This process has turned out to be rather difficult in Moldova. Partly this is because most accountants are uninterested in working with a restaurant due to the high numbers of transactions but it is also because of meetings like the following.

So, we go to meet the senior accountant at a small firm. She came highly recommended to us by a friend who's parent's company contracts with her and she speaks English Russian and Romanian well. Seems perfect. When we arrive we are ushered into a room with her and her firm's Director. It is possible I have mentioned the status of directors in Moldova in the past. In short their importance in an enterprise is only surpassed by their self importance.

Ok team, this post shall be short and sweet. The title pretty much lets you know what it's about and the lead in pic gives away the end. So, Mobias Bank eh? why?

The answer turns out to be more that there wasn't anything significant to chase us away from it. In order to get there let me list off the main banking options in Moldova as well as their affiliations.

Bank

International Affiliation

Notes

Moldova Agroindbank

N/A

This is the bank used by Peace Corps which speaks rather highly to it.

BCR Bank

Erste Group (Germany)

Mobias Bank

Groupe Societe Generale (France)

Victoria Bank

N/A

Owned by and closely affiliated with Vladimir Plahotniuc, sometimes called "Moldova's one and only oligarch." Multiple people have referred to Victoria Bank as the safest bank in the country because of its association with Mr. Plahotniuc.

I'd like to say that we did exhaustive research here but we pretty much just gathered the above information and decided that we wanted our money in an internationally backed bank which leaving Mobias and BCR. Choosing between them pretty much came down to convenience of location.

The first real question we were faced with after deciding to start our business was "how shall it be organized?" In America this is usually a question between LLC vs. a Limited Partnership. In Moldova there are some other considerations that needed to be settled. In order of how we explored them...

Can foreigners invest in / own Moldovan companies?

Yes. Non-Moldovans can own up to 99% of what is called a "mixed capital" Moldovan firm. Foreign firms can additionally wholly own subsidiaries in Moldova but this is subject to rules that I don't know anything about. Since we have 2 American and 1 Moldovan partner this seemed like a reasonable stipulation and not one likely to get in our way. Once we understood that it was possible to start a company here without too many hoops to jump through we asked...

**Update 8/18/14** I forgot to mention a really key fact here that is really rather important. In the event that any of your investors are NOT located in Moldova / able to fly to Moldova regurally to sign documents you need be ready to have them send Gold Apostilles every time you need to make a company decision requiring their aproval. A Gold Apostille is a type of international notorization authorized by a 1960s Hague Convention and is issued by competent authorities in every country party to the convention. Every US state does this differently and I've seen evidence of cost ranging from $10 to $200 per document. You can imagine that this has the potential to be a real burden. Thank you Clayton for the comments that inspired this edit :)